What Does A Real Model Family Look Like?

Today I would like to look at families.

• What does a real model family look like?

• When you’re asked this question what comes to mind?

1. Leave it to Beaver (June and Ward)

2. Howard and Marian from (Happy Days)

• What do you think about when it comes to a role model for the family.

In today’s society, it seems that dysfunctional families are being viewed as the norm,

• And the reasons that they are dysfunctional now seem to be taken for granite and even expected.

• In fact the values that we started with are now viewed as out of the norm making them dysfunctional

• Because they are becoming so rare

There are families today with absent parents, single parents, step-parents.

• There are even “families” with 2 dads or 2 moms.

• Is it any wonder our society is in such deep trouble when the family unit is breaking down at such a rapid pace?

In today’s world Loneliness is so prevalent that people are paying others to listen to them!

• 30% of Americans say that they have experienced long periods of painful loneliness.

70% of Americans don’t know their neighbors.

• Internet chat rooms are booming.

• Bars are filled with lonely people looking for someone to listen.

Where is the family in all of this? Where is the togetherness?

The family that I want to look at today is a different sort of family

• A family that stays together, that shares together, that fellowships together.

• It’s what a true family should be.

• It’s the Family of God.

And this family is the cure for loneliness.

Because The truth is, we are family.

• Lexington Christian Church is a family.

• The Church of Christ is a family.

• Throughout the NT, we see family words like brothers (Used over 130x’s)

So what does this Biblical family look like?

• Or maybe a better question would be, what should it look like?

• There are a lot of churches out there that are anything but a Biblical family.

• The Passage that best describes what a Biblical family should look like is

ironically, also the one that tells us about the first Church family.

If you would please turn to Acts 2:40-47. Background

• Acts is an amazing book that’s full of incredible accounts of the powerful and miraculous working of God.

• It describes the beginnings of the church.

• It’s describes the birth oif the church/ the early years of the NT Church.

• And It’s also shows the shift from Judaism to Christianity.

These verses in Acts gives us a great model for our “family”.

• In Acts 1 Jesus ascends and the disciples wait for the Holy Spirit.

• In Acts 2, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes powerfully upon them, and they speak in other languages and Peter stands up to preach.

Acts 2:40-47

We see in the verse 40

Ac 2:40 Peter urged all his listeners, “To Save themselves from this generation that has gone astray!”

• Today We to have to save ourselves

And because the people responded to what he was saying We are told in verse 41

Ac 2:41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church—about three thousand in all.

• This literally was the birth of the Church!

• And now, in the following verses we get a glimpse of how that church became a family.

What we see is that God’s family was serious about spiritual growth.

• They gathered together and devoted themselves to teaching and fellowship.

• This means they made it their main concern.

• When you devote yourself to something, you make it your number 1 priority.

• Their main concern was to learn from the apostles

• And to fellowship and to meet and interact with others.

We are also told that they broke bread together and prayed together.

• Isn’t this what families do?

• They eat together, / Hang out together/ Learn from each other / Pray together

• They interact together

It Sounds to me that from the very beginning they were Family / Members of God’s family.

• It wasn’t just a club that hung out together.

• It wasn’t just a monthly pot-luck dinner or greeting time in Church.

• There was a purpose for gathering.

• And that Purpose was organized fellowship.

But What is fellowship?

• Some might say it is eating out together or going to church.

• When we gather here for fellowship there is a purpose for it.

• We are seeking to build each other up and encourage each other.

Fellowship is loving each member of God’s family.

1Jn 4:21 And God himself has commanded that we must love not only him but our Christian brothers and sisters, too.